2020 Presidential Fundraising stats for Q1 are in. The incumbent has raised almost $100 million total. The leading challengers have collected between $7 Million and $20 Million each. https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race
That’s a lot of money. I’m sure a lot of us feel that spending hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads, websites, buttons and lawn signs is a bit antiquated.
This isn’t about any particular candidate. It isn’t about one cause either. There are plenty of things needing help–and plenty of candidates too. This is a broader appeal to show how campaign donations money might be spent in order to generate outsized, tech company style velocity. It’s a simple idea. Candidates need exposure. They need to get ideas across and to get support. But they all go about it the same way.
What if one candidate stopped their one-note stump speech style of campaigning and started doing things that mattered. Here’s the plan.
- Pick something you stand for, ideally, one that has a human component.
- Find 10 places where that problem exists.
- Reach out to all supporters and all local outlets for that problem and give them a chance to share their thoughts and vote on which of the 10 is most urgent.
- Put a chunk of your campaign donations into fixing that problem at that first place. Even funding a plan to fix it is progress.
- Use your appearances budget to visit the other 9 areas that need help.
- Detail how the campaign donations will be used to solve this problem. And use all of this to create more articles, posts, speeches, etc.
- Engage the best people to pile on and help fix the problem. For a time Elon Musk was going to help Flint and their water pipes problem. Again, this isn’t about one issue, or celebrity or candidate, but imagine the velocity that any combination of these would generate.
- Talk about how we can’t afford the luxury to wait for 2020. We need to get started fixing problems, and we don’t have time to listen to plans and bloviations. Let’s take some action now!
- Pick the next area of focus–and probably have it be something that isn’t affiliated with your party. If you’re liberal, choose a conservative cause, and vice versa. You’ll get more attention and credibility. You’re also going to expand your campaign donations efforts.
Think of how much press a simple act like this would generate. Sure there would be infighting and cries of favoritism. But isn’t this what happens in politics anyway? Let the people lobby for the causes instead of the insiders. Ideally, there would be initiatives in every State giving campaign workers something concrete to execute.
UPDATE: Looks like Bloomberg did something similar.
It has to be more interesting to do some good rather than begging for campaign donations and then prodding people to go to the polls. For candidates struggling to stand out, there is no better way than to put your money where your mouth is.